Affordable-rentals bills are expected to advance

A bill designed to give owners of apartment-size lots enough incentive to develop affordable rentals is up for a key vote before the Honolulu City Council today.

Among the major points of contention on Bill 7 has been the minimum widths of stairwells. Currently, the width of a first stairwell in a building needs to be at least 48 inches, while a building’s second stairwell, now required except in some buildings with an elevator, needs to be a minimum of 36 inches.

Building advocates want the minimum width of stairwells in the walk-up buildings to be reduced to 36 inches. They also want any second stairwells to be as narrow as 30 inches. Additional width would reduce the square footage of apartment units, they argued.

But officials with both the Fire Department and the Department of Planning and Permitting, citing safety issues, want the width of the first stairwells to remain at a minimum of 48 inches and the second stairwells to stay at 36 inches.

The version of Bill 7 that passed the Zoning Committee on March 28 includes the narrower limits favored by the building advocates, but Zoning Chairwoman Kymberly Pine said Tuesday she’s now inclined to require the wider stairwells being sought by city officials.

At the March 28 meeting, city Deputy Planning Director Timothy Hiu said because the bill proposes that an apartment need contain only one stairwell, “the minimum required stair width should be a little wider than 36 because 36 is the minimum stair width for two exits.”

Hiu said it’s a safety issue. “By having a wider set of stairs, the fire and emergency personnel have more room to work if they have to transport a person down the stairs.”

Assistant Fire Chief Socrates Bratakos concurred.

A 3-foot-wide stairwell “is not enough for people to come down while firefighters are going up and trying to lay hoses,” he said. “Thirty inches … is very skinny for people trying to go down the stairway.”

The bill proposes to allow lower-standard sprinklers and alarm systems, and given the reduced standards in those areas, “we need to make sure that there’s a good way for people to get out of the building,” he said.

“Carrying patients down narrow stairways is very difficult, even when it’s two or three stories,” Bratakos said. “And when it’s five or six stories, it’s tougher, and you need some room for two people to stand next to each other on one side and two on the other side and get around the corners of the stairs. That’s why we ask for additional length on at least one stairway.”

The current draft of the bill also lifts a requirement for elevators for apartment buildings up to six stories tall. Bratakos said HFD prefers that the existing law requiring elevators in buildings four stories or taller stay in place.

Duane Buote, facility access coordinator for the state Disability and Communication Access Board, testified that waiving elevator requirements would preclude those with disabilities from taking advantage of most of the units the bill would provide.

Mel Kaneshige, a retired hotel executive, however, said requiring elevators would add costs to projects. “We’re trying to keep the cost down to $225 a foot,” a price point that would allow the owners to rent a one-bedroom unit at $1,350 for a one-bedroom unit and $1,650 for a two-bedroom, he said. “If you increase the costs, you’re going to have to increase the rents.”

The broad-ranging Bill 7 provides a slew of other incentives for property owners and developers from increased building heights and density to less parking.

“We are in a housing crisis, and we need to do different and bold things,” Pine said.

Bill 6 provide similar incentives and is also expected to receive the second of three needed approvals from the Council today.

Kaneshige, who helped draft the bills, said the idea is to encourage development in underutilized properties of 20,000 square feet or less in multifamily residential districts. “It’s not a developer bill. It’s aimed at individual owners of smaller lots.” Large-scale developers would not be interested “because the lots are too small and the return (on investment) is too skinny in order for this to work.”

Kaneshige noted that those property owners who agree to the conditions of the bill are required to continue renting their units at 100 percent of area median income or less “until the building falls down. … This is not one of those 10-year, 15-year, 20-year, 30-year things.”